Snowfalls
by Satan's Little Helper
Summary: It's not lost on Remus that two months ago, it would have been just James and Sirius up at this hour of the night, scuffling through trunks for gloves and scarves and hats, and bickering incessantly. RS, but more importantly a Marauders friendship fic.


Sirius can just sense it, he figures. Somewhere between the dog instincts and having the bed closest to the window, he wakes up at one in the morning, and frowns curiously into the darkness for a moment before he recognize the nearly imperceptible click of little pieces of ice against the glass.

A disturbed smile spreads across his face as he scrambles to his feet and clumsily fights his way through two different sets of red velvet curtains to stand at the frosting window. Then his grin grows painfully wide.

---

"Moony! Hey, Moony!" Remus flails sleepily in the direction of his clock, and instead comes in contact with a rather scruffy head of hair.

"Oh," he says without opening his eyes, and rolls over to face the other side of the bed.

Sirius snorts. "Now really, what kind of treatment is that? Moooooony. Moony," he tries again, "our transfiguration final started ten minutes ago."

"Shut up," Remus says disinterestedly into the covers, "It's winter and we haven't got any exams and you know it."

"Damn," Sirius says, and is quiet for a moment.

"If you're going to say," Remus eventually supplies, "That one day I really will be late to an exam and you'll come to get me and I won't believe you, well, I don't think it's very likely.

Sirius looks at him with an odd smile and says, "That's just scary, you know."

"Mm-hmm. Well, I do try."

"But- fuck, Moony, get up!" He grabs Remus by the shoulder and forcibly rolls him out of bed so that they both nearly end up on the floor and Remus elbows him hard in the stomach, which Sirius thinks was probably unintentional, but maybe still deserved.

Remus rubs his eyes and asks "What?", sounding more petulant than he really intends.

"Come look," Sirius says, and he takes hold of one wrist and pulls Remus down to the far end of the room. In stead of opening the curtains they duck behind them and stand at the window with the heavy material falling against their backs. Remus exhales a little laugh that fogs and fades quickly on the cold glass. Sirius watches him instead of the fast-falling snow, and thinks for half a second that Remus is going to go "Well yes, Sirius, it's winter. In winter it snows." in that particular way that means, "You'll always be a retarded eleven-year-old to me, no matter how big you get. Now go put pudding down Snivellus' pants for my amusement."

The scary part, he thinks, is he is not entirely past the stage where he would do it, either. Though now he would probably have sense enough to wear gloves.

Remus looks out over the grounds, padded thick with snow -- almost a foot, judging from the top of the gamekeeper's hut -- and the fat, dense flakes blowing down outside their window, and says softly, "Wow."

Sirius grins and bounces on the balls of his feet. "See? See? Totally worth getting up for."

Remus has often wondered about Sirius' strange ability to go between opposites in such a short time. From dead asleep to spastic energetic at this time of night is both enviable and a little frightening. Over time, he's concluded that it probably has i something /i to do with being a madman.

But then, he reflects, he can't really claim the same amnesty from that kind of madness that he once could, and he tugs Sirius' attention away from the window with a hand on the front of his pajamas and pulls him in for a soft kiss.

---

It's not entirely lost on him that if it were two months ago it would have been just James and Sirius up at this ridiculous hour of the night, scuffling through trunks for gloves and scarves and hats and bickering at an increasing volume about who got to steal Peter's (absurdly warm but also incredibly dorky) snow pants the same way they had for the past six years.

"Hey," Remus said blearily, pulling back the curtains around his bed and sticking his head out, "What's going on?"

"Padfoot," James said sagely, "is being a _complete_ arse again, just because _he_ thinks-"

"I've been sick _all week_" Sirius pouts, sniffling exaggeratedly. "Do you _want_ me to freeze my bollocks off and catch pneumonia? Me? Your best mate?"

James groaned and glared exasperatedly at the ceiling for a moment, before throwing out one arm and smacking Sirius a good one upside the back of the head. Sirius looked extremely shocked and affronted for a moment before launching himself through the air at the other boy.

"Well, when you wake Peter up I expect _he'll_ wear his pants," Remus said for the benefit of no one in particular, as the two other boys rolled under Sirius' bed.

"Sorry Moony," James said later, trying to brush a couple of dust bunnies out of his hair with his fingers. "We didn't mean to wake you up, really."

"We thought you might murder us," Sirius said, and immediately thought to amend it. "I mean-"

"Good instincts," Remus said, and had no choice but to turn over and wait until slowly he fell back asleep.

---

After a while, Sirius pulls the curtain open partway so they can escape the dust and the cool air that seeps in around the window frame, and they both flop backward onto his bed with a sigh. He stretches satisfyingly and lets one hand drift to Remus's head, gently mussing already sleep-mussed hair.

It's the snow, he decides, when the clock slicks over to three o'clock and he starts thinking about things that are normally reserved for when he's drunk or extremely tired, everyone laying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack as the sun rises, putting off getting properly dressed and trooping back up to the school.

He loves James, he realizes, and also realizes that he's known him far too long to ever actually admit to it.

He wonders if he's known Remus too long as well.

"We should probably go jump on James," Sirius yawns.

"Should we?" Remus says mildly.

"Probably," Sirius yawns and stretches hugely. "This is dereliction of duty, you know."

"Mmmm," Remus says, and Sirius decides to stop thinking about it.

---

When James drags them all outside for a melee snowball fight before breakfast, Sirius spends half his time being blinded by the sun and is not at all up to par. Later, secretly, he decides he doesn't mind.


End file.
